Interview with J. Marshall Freeman (score)

How did you get involved with Fluff?

I hadn't seen Steve Hutton in 5 years and I bumped into him at a party one night. I think probably what Steve spent most of his time doing is just asking random people if they wanted to be involved with his movie. So, I said, "Sure, what do you want me to do?" and he said, "I want you to wear lederhosen, play the violin, and pretend you're in a polka band."

So, your job was to play the violin?

Once I was involved with the movie, I finagled my way into doing other things, the main thing being working on the score and songs for the movie and music directing.

How did Fluff get a love theme?

It seemed like a natural extension, because it is a story about love. We were rehearsing in Guelph and I was thinking this whole thing needs to lead to a grand love theme the same way Titanic did. I had a scrap of a song I started writing ten years ago. Between the Saturday reading and the Sunday reading, I went home and finished it. I brought Robb Gorman into the studio, and by the next week we had something for everyone to listen to.

The producer originally wanted an all-Beethoven score. What happened?

What's good about working with Steve is that he has some strong ideas. They're not always great ideas, but they're always ideas which is a good thing to start from. Beethoven is not background music meant to support a scene; it's meant to be played in a concert hall and listened to. I started suggesting other kinds of music and volunteered to do the score. Being a very generous person, Steve Hutton said, "Sure, go ahead and do the score."

Some of the music is pretty far from Beethoven!

The movie is about pretentious theatre people doing a porn movie. I'm interested in the way the porn insinuates itself into the story. I felt that we needed a really raunchy and funny piece of music that was the porn imposing itself on the story.

What was it like being in a polka band?

I liked working with the other three members of Bratwurst Division because we formed a little unit. We didn't have much to do except look surprised, so we developed this whole little language of tics and winks and what we imagined were Bavarian expressions of surprise.

Tell me about the opening credits that you created.

Steve had the idea of using the labours of Hercules, so it's classical but because it's Fluff it's classical mixed with gay kitsch.

What do you do outside of Fluff?

I'm a graphic designer, musician, and writer but I only get paid for the first one.